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Topic: Siberia (Read 1538 times)

I don't know if this show belongs here because it's a dramatic series about a Survivor type reality show. Hopefully the moderators will move it if it doesn't belong here.

I stumbled across Siberia last night on NBC and had not heard anything at all about it. I watched it while I was doing other stuff, so I was only giving it my partial attention. The premise is that an international group of 16 people were flown from London to a remote location in Siberia to form their own civilization. They meet the Australian host who informs them that their cabins are located two miles away along a marked trail and that the last two people to arrive will be immediately eliminated from the game. Oh, and that there are no rules for their behavior. Anything goes. Anyway, the trek to camp becomes a cliffhanger as two people veer off the trail thinking they can find a shortcut and eventually have to backtrack to the trail and the geeky Cochran clone turns his ankle and has to limp along withe the support of one of the others who stays behind to help him along. In the end, the injured guy and his helper arrive before the two that wandered off the trail and they are saved. There is the usual drama about who's sleeping where in the cabins and about starting a fire which eventually gets done using the glasses from the injured guy. Also, about the lazy guy that sunbathes and doesn't help get the camp set up.

So far, it seems like a halfway decent Survivor clone.

Then they get word from a big box (10 foot cube roughly) with loud horns that for food, they can eat the red and white mushrooms in the forest if they boil them first. I was rather incredulous as they looked just like the death cap mushrooms I've heard about. If someone gets poisoned eating those mushrooms, you'd have have more liability lawyers swarming around than if you had tobacco and recalled medicines leaking out of your breast implants. Also, there isn't much nutrition in mushrooms.

It's late, so they build a campfire and bond around it during the evening. Until they hear Big Scary Animal Noises in the woods and retreat to their cabins for the night.

So, the next morning, they go foraging for mushrooms in small groups. The injured Cochran clone almost immediately catches a frog with 3 hind legs. Mutations from radiation? Are they near Chernobyl? No, near the Tunguska Meteor explosion in 1908.

Another group finds some mushrooms but one of the guys keeps pushing on while the other two women stop because they are afraid of getting lost. They return to camp, but the guy does not. Fast forward a couple of hours and they are getting worried about him. Suddenly a cameraman stumbles into camp, blood streaming down his face and hands from a bad head wound, but he did not abandon his camera! He is quickly whisked off for medical attention. Shortly thereafter, the host appears and announces that there has been a terrible accident which, umm, was unfortunately fatal for the missing mushroom forager. He gives them the option of continuing with the show or accepting $5000 each and going home. They will ponder it overnight. The show ends with some Blair Witch Project style running from something in the woods. The camera guy gets knocked down and the camera films the grass from ground level while some distance away you hear screaming.

They had dropping my mouth open in shock when they announced the guy was dead, but then it slowly dawned on me that this must be a scripted show and not real. It was driven home when I saw the scenes from upcoming shows which had lots of yelling and screaming and running, a cabin (maybe more) fully engulfed in flames and a guy saying he thought he saw a tiger. The the credits thanked some governmental agencies and a provincial park in Canada and I absolutely knew it was a fake. Clever, but a fake.

I enjoyed it and I'll probably watch the next episode, but the upcoming scenes didn't look promising. I guess they are going for a Survivor meets Lost meets Lord of the Flies meets the Blair Witch Project concept.

They showed Siberia again last night on NBC. I watched it more closely and I did see a few details that made it seem less real now that I knew what to be watching for. The red colors bleeding off of the mushrooms and onto a white sweater for one.

For those that want to see it, they are showing it on the Syfy channel again tonight at 8 PM Eastern Time.

I just watched the first episode. Pretty good - a scripted reality show! Sounds hilariously awesome!

Cannot believe ESTHER ANDERSON <3 is randomly on there.

Logged

Cause you said you'd never let me go, and I said I can but now we knowThat it's too hard to say three words, too hard to make it workWhen there's nothing left to talk about, cause you know the flame is running outTwo hearts are left to burn... do you know, we're only left with smoke

Cause you said you'd never let me go, and I said I can but now we knowThat it's too hard to say three words, too hard to make it workWhen there's nothing left to talk about, cause you know the flame is running outTwo hearts are left to burn... do you know, we're only left with smoke

Cause you said you'd never let me go, and I said I can but now we knowThat it's too hard to say three words, too hard to make it workWhen there's nothing left to talk about, cause you know the flame is running outTwo hearts are left to burn... do you know, we're only left with smoke

Cause you said you'd never let me go, and I said I can but now we knowThat it's too hard to say three words, too hard to make it workWhen there's nothing left to talk about, cause you know the flame is running outTwo hearts are left to burn... do you know, we're only left with smoke

Cause you said you'd never let me go, and I said I can but now we knowThat it's too hard to say three words, too hard to make it workWhen there's nothing left to talk about, cause you know the flame is running outTwo hearts are left to burn... do you know, we're only left with smoke